Weird But Very Nice

Abby as Chiaki Nanami
from Danganronpa 2

As my kids get older - and as we are safe at home for another however long - they long more for Things to Do, rather than Things to Have. Therefore, this was the Christmas of Art Supplies.

For Abby, just 18, this is almost any medium, but she prefers alcohol markers and colored pencils. Her sister even got her three plain white tees and a set of fabric paints, to aid in her other quarantine love... cosplaying her favorite anime characters. 

Black and purple rose
sculpture with pink "blood"

For Lizzy, 13, this is all about air-dry clay, acrylic paints, jewelry-making kits, and strings of tiny fairy lights. Or the occasional KiwiCo, Inc. product, as she has graduated from TinkerCrate to EurekaCrate. Mechanical engineering, color mixing, that sort of thing.

Oh, they got other gifts, too, and it was the sort of holiday where - presumably because we've been in one another's pockets since March - we just all did a really great job of choosing gifts for each other. My mother was absolutely delighted with a couple squeeze bottles of Dijonnaise, for instance, and I was just as excited having found them for her; they've been in short supply. Conversely, she got me hilarious Dr-Fauci-as-Superman socks. 

Dr. Fauci as Superman
knit sock

It was just the four of us, to stay as safe as possible, and we've been the same four since March, so it's as safe a bet as can be managed right now. Takeout Italian and 'Twas Reimagined on Christmas Eve, sweet rolls and stocking gifts Christmas Morning, smorgasbord/charcuterie and other gifts Christmas Afternoon. It was awesome.

Very very weird.

But awesome.

Grownups

Poster with 2020 in fireworks
and "zero of five stars do
not recommend"
as a caption.

I haven't written here in a week or so, because I've been job-hunting and game-playing and Facebook-posting and tree-decorating and birthday-celebrating and so forth instead.

But as I have been doing these things, I've been keeping an eye on the local and national and world news... not a close eye, because that leads to depression and anxiety, but enough to know what's going on in the world.

It's not pretty. 

Everything from entitled and misogynistic assholes calling women with earned doctorates "kiddo" and suggesting that women are purely decorative, to the Proud Boys rioting in the streets in both Washingtons.

What do these people have in common?

I mean, it's easy enough - and accurate - to say that as a group they're bigots or racists or misogynists or white nationalists or straight white males or conservative Christians or all of the above. All these things are demonstrably true for many of them.

But honestly, I think a lot of it is all in the name.

They're proud boys, not proud men.

That is to say, they're acting like children, spoiled children who have never been told no before. 

And they don't like it, not one little bit.

Even my younger child - who is suffering from chronic and acute 13-year-old-know-it-all-itis - even she is more grown-up than these small, petty people are. And her big sister, just barely a legal adult, is far and away more mature.

It's kind of ridiculous.

It's petty of me to feel like Karma or God or the Universe is too damn slow in taking care of their posturing, small, anti-masking, fuck-you-I've-got-mine selves, but the difference is that I know I'm a petty asshat when I say things like that, and I'll say it out loud and own my pettiness.

Because I'm a grownup.